Staying on Top When Your World's Upside Down

You can be a victim or a visionary but not both

“Self-pity is poison. There is no time. I need a future and refuse to become a victim. Too often we become oblivious to our own prisons, taking the bars and high walls for granted. Sometimes we construct them ourselves, and the barbed wire goes up even higher. Too many of the limitations placed on us are an extension of our own timidity.”Richard M. Cohen: Blindsided

When bad things happen, when your world turns upside down, it’s okay to be angry. It is not okay to be a victim. Despite living with serious medical conditions that have been physically debilitating and eventually caused blindness, Richard Cohen was able to become a very successful television producer. Just being blind did not prevent him from being a visionary.

Victims are, by definition, focused on what has happened to them in the past. Visionaries, on the other hand, are focused on what is possible in the future.

You can be a victim or you can be a visionary. But you cannot be both.